Loving Others In The Ways We Would Love Ourselves

Many revered and important people of the past tell us to "love others in the ways we would love ourselves", which is also expressed as "do unto others what we would want others to do unto us", or to "show kindness, mercy and compassion to the people around us". Some ways we do this were written in books of wisdom from our past, and I'll just focus on three sets of teachings here.

In the Bible, there's Leviticus 19:18, which tells us to love our neighbours as ourselves.  This law is repeated in many other places in the Bible, such as Matthew 22:39, Mark 12:31, Romans 13:8-10, Galatians 5:14 and James 2:8. Luke 6:31 tells us to do to others as we would have them do to us.  In other parts of the Bible, there are more specifics mentioned about how we should treat others, such as Exodus 22:20-26, where we are not to oppress strangers, widows and orphans.  We are also not to take advantage of the poor when we lend money to them.  In Luke 10:25–37, the Parable of The Good Samaritan provides another example of how we should treat the poor among us.

In the Quran and its hadiths, it is also mentioned in many places that we should treat the people around us well or how we should behave around other people, such as Surah An-Nisa (4:36), Surah Al-Baqarah (2:83) and Surah Ali 'Imran (3:159). The hadith Sahih Muslim 45a provides the most similar text about loving for our neighbours and brothers, what we love for ourselves. It's about true and complete faith that shows in genuinely wishing the same good, blessings, and well-being for our fellow human beings or neighbors as we wish for ourselves. Sahih al-Bukhari 13 from Kitab al-Iman and An-Nawawi's Hadith 13 say very similarly.

In Buddhist teachings, it was stated that Buddha had wanted us to not treat others in ways that we ourselves would find hurtful. This was stated as the Golden Rule – the non-harming and universal Metta or loving-kindness, and Karuna or compassion. This precept is substantiated by the Principle of Self-Reflection or Attūpanāyika, the Law of Cause and Effect or Kamma, and Interconnectedness or Paṭicca-samuppāda. In the Dhammapada 10.129, we are also told not to hurt others in ways that we ourselves would find hurtful. 

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